Xander and the Sphinx
by bhut
Summary: Xander meets the Greek Sphinx the Strangler. Now what?


**Xander and the Sphinx**

_Disclaimer: None of the characters are mine..._

Xander was lost. Xander was in Africa and he was lost. Xander was in the Atlas Mountains in Morocco – a country in Africa – and he was lost. And to top it all off, it was getting dark.

"Oh, look at the big bad Sunnydale native," the self-angry young man was muttering crossly as he suddenly found himself walking through a very unfriendly-looking mountain pass. "Lo, be-hold all the vampires and the demons of the night fleeing from his unholy – no, wait, that's holy – wrath! Feel the mountains tremble under his tread! Observe – what's that?"

'That' was a small stone, really just a pebble that fell down just before him with a PLOP! For all intents and purposes this was an equally insignificant event, but Xander was a native of Sunny-dale, and thus he had a sort of a sixth sense when it came to danger. Slowly, ever so slowly he stopped moving forwards, and instead looked up back at the mountaintops, from which the initial pebble had fallen.

At first he couldn't see anything in the contrast of the fading dusky light and the deepening dusk, but then he was able to discern a shadowy, somewhat otherworldly silhouette of – a lion? During his travels in Africa and after a run-in with a particularly powerful 'hedge mage' in Ethiopia Xander had developed a rather profound dislike of lions, and this one, although still high up in the cliffs was...

...was lying right next to the path, which was curving to the left, and on whose sides lay bones and skulls, whitened and yellowed with time. Clearly, the lion has been hunting here - success-fully, too – for quite a long time...

Suddenly, Xander frowned, feeling an odd unease in his bones. If this was a lion – and this looked like a lion – there where was its' mane? For only lions hunted alone, the non-maned lionesses didn't...and this was a lion, right?

As Xander frowned in consternation, the sun had fully set, the moon just began to rise, and the first stars began to appear – as a result, the untrustworthy mix of fading sunlight and deepening shadows had vanished, and now Xander could see a pair of avian wings, folded on the 'lion's' back, and the decisively non-bestial torso and face that stared back at him with eyes that seemed as old as time, as old the empty space between the stars.

In short, Xander Harris was looking at the Sphinx, and the Strangler was looking back at him – a fact that was most definitely not to Xander's liking. He gulped quietly, yet instead of backing out of the valley quietly, his habit of speaking before thinking caused him to do exactly that:

"So, uh, I guess you have survived after all these centuries after your riddle has been solved, hah?" he said, sounding as dumb as he thought that he was. "So, what are you doing here?"

It wasn't the best of opening lines, but the Sphinx took it all the same, moving closer, revealing bright lips on a rather overly pale face armed with bestially sharp teeth.

"Are you ready to answer my riddle, oh man from the Dale of the Sun?" she said, purringly.

"I guess," Xander gulped. "If I don't, feel free to call me Oedipus."

The Sphinx acted as if she hadn't heard Xander's second part of reply, and instead re-started to speak. Her voice, human and leonine simultaneously, scared Xander more than her appearance ever had:

"Tell me, stranger, do you think that I am but a ghost, met in the dark of the night? For if I am, after all, real, then how can real be you? For if I am alive I must slay you, how is that for a clue? But if I am just an illusion, a long-lost wanderer's dream, then how come I can be real, and not vanish from a moon-beam? Can be that only things real are those bones and cliff? So, do tell me what's real, which of us pair shall live?"

Xander gulped and just stared back at the Strangler, losing precious time, as the Sphinx grew till she was taller than the mountains, till her eyes were on the same level with the stars in the sky – and she was still looking down at him.

Xander groaned and just sat down in a huff. "Why do such things always happen to me?" he muttered...


End file.
